Building friendship: Agricultural engineers work together to serve the future of OSU Agriculture

Building friendship: Agricultural engineers work together to serve the future of OSU Agriculture

Friday, December 13, 2024

Media Contact: Sophia Fahleson | Digital Communications Specialist | 405-744-7063 | [email protected]

When presented with a job opportunity to move his family from Booneville, Arkansas, to Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 2012, Randy Raper called lifelong friend, Raymond Huhnke, for some advice on the new position.

Little did he know a decade later the phone calls between these friends would be more than just friendly advice.

In 2021, Raper called Huhnke for help planning and overseeing construction activities related to the building of the new Agricultural Hall.

"Ray and I have worked together on a number of things over the years," Raper said. "When Ray was starting to talk about retirement I went to him and asked 'Would you be willing to work with me on this process on a part-time basis?' and he agreed."

Even though Huhnke retired in January 2021, he continued making contributions to the Ferguson College of Agriculture as an engineer for Agricultural Hall, assisting in any way he could to help with the fine details related to design, layout and construction of the new facility, he said

"I worked with Randy in addressing what has been and what needs to be done to make the great facility we have now," Huhnke said.

The pair worked together to create a space for students, faculty and staff to call home while serving as the coined duo in each meeting and stage of development for the new Agricultural Hall.

"Ray has been a tremendous help in terms of being a second set of eyes and ears in the room, going back and forth making sure we heard the same things," Raper said.

Directing the Vision

In the ninth grade, Randy Raper was asked by a teacher to write an essay on what he wanted to be when he grew up. Little did he know the answer to the question would change his life.

"I wrote the story on being an agriculture engineer," said Raper, assistant vice president of facilities for Oklahoma State University Agriculture. "I turned it in, and the teacher said it was a great story. However, she said, 'You will never be an agriculture engineer. You will be an agricultural engineer.'"

As a native of northern Alabama, Raper said he had waited his whole life to attend Auburn University and make his ninth-grade dream a reality. However, when persuaded by a buddy to tour Mississippi State University, his plan was altered overnight, he said.

"We went there and visited with the department head," Raper said. "Before we left that day, he had convinced both of us to go to Mississippi State and go into agricultural engineering."

As a new student of MSU, Raper was determined to work hard and find a way to pay for school while gaining experience in his hopeful career path, he said.

"In my first semester, I got a call from my dad who said I had a letter at home and I needed to check into it," Raper said. "The letter said John Deere was interviewing on campus the next day and they were looking for agricultural engineers."

Raper interviewed with John Deere and received a position in a cooperative program to alternate one semester at school and one semester at John Deere. He spent more than two years in their collegiate program with hopes of continuing in a path to full-time employment with the company, he said.

"Near the end of the program when I would have been offered the job in the early 1980s is when jobs were really difficult to find," Raper said. "John Deere eliminated the program. No one got a job, so I decided to look at graduate school."

Raper's journey to higher education led him to Iowa State University where he earned both master's and doctoral degrees. His career path led him back to northern Alabama then to Booneville, Arkansas, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture before a call came to interview at OSU.

Raper joined OSU Agriculture in 2012 as an engineer to evaluate property, buildings and research areas for enhancement or maintenance to ensure all spaces maximized the learning experience, he said.

In 2017, Raper entered the conversation about what it would take to build a new Agricultural Hall.

As a professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering with experience in agricultural research, he said his goal was to find solutions and implement a space for generations of students to enjoy.

"My background is in research," Raper said. "I knew I could do that with my eyes closed, but this was a new challenge, working in construction."

In the early stages of development, Raper sought a variety of perspectives to ensure the new Agricultural Hall was built on the needs of its inhabitants, he said.

"He played a role in bringing faculty to the table and getting staff involved," said Thomas Coon, retired vice president and dean of OSU Agriculture.

Raper had observed a trend of faculty members outlasting the department leadership in terms of years in their respective roles, so he created a committee of professors and staff to suggest features necessary for a new space with productivity and practicality, he said.

"I really thought if we were going to do something like this that would be beneficial," Raper said. "I felt it ought to be faculty-driven."

Raper played a vital role in facilitating meetings with the appropriate professors and staff with the team of architects, said George Winters, principal architect behind the development of the new Agricultural Hall.

This allowed for the necessary insight on the requirements to create a functional space for students, faculty, and staff, Winters added.

"Dr. Raper cares a lot about people," Coon said. "What students like about the new building is what he created for them. He wanted to make this building for students."

With the former Agricultural Hall, now named Legacy Hall, housing few shared spaces, students would come for their scheduled class time and depart soon after.

This observation led Raper to think like a student and imagine an environment to enhance the academic experience, he said.

"He's behind the scenes from a student perspective, but everything he did was student-focused," Coon said.

Raper wanted spaces for student organizations and faculty gatherings as well as places to cultivate conversations and welcoming spaces to lounge, catch up or focus on the next task at hand, he said.

"All of the sudden, I'm seeing something tremendously rewarding, the way students are using the spaces," Raper said.

The biggest difference between the new Agricultural Hall and the previous building is the designated areas for students to flourish, a credit to the design and contributing conversations from those who occupy it, Raper said.

"It all goes back to his character and his mission," Winters said. "He is committed to the university, to its students, to its faculty and to the success of this building."

For Raper, success is ensuring the space designed for students and faculty continue to be well used, he said.

As he lives out his ninth-grade dream of being an agricultural engineer, Raper said he will continue to apply the guiding principle of being people-focused for each upcoming project and development.

Story by Karstyn Cantrell | Cowboy Journal

Serving the Future

When many reminisce on their time in 4-H, they catapult to a memory. They may not have realized it then, but they were learning irreplaceable teamwork and leadership skills.

For Raymond Huhnke, 4-H is where he developed these skills that became vital to his career, he said.

"My passion to help others goes back to my youth," Huhnke said. "4-H provided me with my thought process. It allowed me to work with a variety of different members, even the younger 4-H members, to give them insights as to how they could put their best work into their projects. It has always been a team effort to make things better."

With a goal to make the agricultural industry better, Huhnke started his education at Purdue University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering.

Huhnke then went on to gain a master's degree from the University of Illinois and a doctoral degree from Iowa State University, both in agricultural engineering.

In 1980, Huhnke started his journey at Oklahoma State University as an assistant professor and agricultural extension engineer. Huhnke spent the first 35 years of his career focusing on OSU Extension services.

"I have probably known Ray longer than anyone on this campus," said Ron Elliott, retired agricultural engineer and emeritus head of the OSU Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. "He is knowledgeable in a wide variety of areas and is a solid engineer."

Huhnke and Elliott met at the University of Illinois through the agricultural engineering master's program. They reconnected when Elliott joined the OSU faculty in 1981.

At the beginning of his time at OSU, Huhnke worked on the development of farm structures.

He has had many successes in this area and is widely known for his work in corral and beef working facilities, Huhnke said. Huhnke helped develop facilities to keep animals and handlers safe while still being efficient, he said. Huhnke recorded a series of videos to inform children about animal handling and farm safety as well as led demonstrations of his work to help farmers to make informed decisions.

Huhnke was the driving force for round-bale storage research, Elliott said. Huhnke saw the financial impact these structures and processes could have on rural farmers, which led him to pursue these projects, he added.

"I branched out and was involved in round-bale storage because hay is one of the top five agricultural commodities in the state, valued at about $600 million," Huhnke said. "If we could save 10% of the hay being stored, that's a significant amount of money that producers could save or invest."

In 2002, Huhnke saw the need for a program called AgrAbility, which allows agricultural workers with disabilities to keep doing the things they are passionate about, he said.

"AgrAbility is a program that reaches out to and helps disabled farmers," Elliott said. "Maybe somebody has great difficulty going up the steps into­­a tractor or operating equipment and they still want to farm. They have some issues to overcome, and some special adaptive devices can help with that."

AgrAbility was just one of the many projects Huhnke was involved in to help farmers keep doing what they love, he said. Huhnke often worked to combine field demonstrations with applied research.

"I wanted to demonstrate things out in the field that would allow me to not only capture the attention of the ranchers and the farmers as to what opportunities there were but also to gain some research data that could be shared within the state and within the region," Huhnke said.

Huhnke made major strides in the biobased energy industry, said Danielle Bellmer, Ferguson College of Agriculture assistant dean of academic programs. Huhnke and Bellmer worked together during the initial stages of the Biobased Products and Energy Center.

This center conducts research on bioenergy and biorefinery operations used to make these processes more sustainable, Bellmer said.

"We started a biofuels research group here at OSU," Bellmer said. "Huhnke and I worked on it a lot together, and then he became the director of the Biobased Products and Energy Center."

During Huhnke's time with the center, he saw the need for federal funding of these projects. He gathered a cohort of students, professors and researchers to help him write grants.

"He helped form a productive, collegial group of researchers that worked well together as a team," Bellmer said. "There were faculty from plant and soil sciences, agricultural economics, and biosystems engineering. We collaborated on grants and projects.

He would organize and lead the group, saying, 'Here's a new grant opportunity. Who wants to participate?'"

The need for grants and the developing research led to researchers from South Dakota State University to reach out to Huhnke and his team. This group wanted to compare regional research efforts in biobased energy, Bellmer said.

Together, SDSU and OSU created the Sun Grant Initiative, a collaborative effort between land-grant universities to research biobased energy. The SGI is federally funded through the U.S. Farm Bill. When the SGI first became federally funded, Huhnke served as the associate director of the Sun Grant Program at OSU.

"We would have small to large proposals submitted to us, and then, we would have a team of experts come in to evaluate those proposals to provide funding through the selected projects within this region," Huhnke said.

These projects have added an estimated $174 million to the regional domestic product as well as the nation.

In 2017, Huhnke's contributions to OSU Agriculture led to his promotion to Regents professor, the highest rung on OSU's academic ladder.

Even though Huhnke retired in January 2021, he still has a passion for making OSU the best it can be, he said, and credits the teamwork and leadership skills he learned from his youth for his career success.

Story by Taylor McGill | Cowboy Journal

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